UEFA Champions League Group Series 2014-2015 Review

UEFA Champions League Group Series, the biggest European competition, will resume on Tuesday after a big break! Allow us to take you back to the group stages of this season’s Champions League.

Last season’s finalist, Atletico and the Serie A winners, Juventus were placed in Group A alongside the Greek club Olympiacos and Malmo FF. The Spanish champions finished the group stages at the top with 13 points, while the Old Lady earned 10 points and finished second. The third placed, Olympiacos have qualified for the Europa League spot.

Real Madrid won all the matches they played in Group B. The European champions picked up 18 points after winning all the six games including the home and away fixtures against Liverpool. The five-time European champions got knocked out after struggling in their first Champions League since 2009. Brendan Rodgers’ team lost thrice and drew twice and finished third in the group. Basel were the second best team in the group as they earned seven points from six matches.

AS Monaco topped the Group C while Bayer Leverkusen finished second. Zenit St. Petersburg and Benfica couldn’t keep up with the French and German clubs. Both Monaco and Leverkusen won three games each, but the Ligue 1 team got one better of the Germans on account of losses. Leverkusen lost twice and drew once and Monaco gathered 11 points by drawing twice and losing once.

Borussia Dortmund are clearly struggling in their domestic league this season and they won’t certainly feature in next year’s version if they don’t win it this season. Their Bundesliga performances were quite different from what they gave in Europe. They topped Group D, followed by the evergreen Arsenal. The Gunners accrued equal points as Klopp’s side (13), but on account of goal difference they finished runners-up.

The winners of Group E, Bayern Munich completely dominated their group. Pep Guardiola’s team lost only once in the group games and they accumulated a total of 15 points. Group E’s runners-up, Manchester City have made it to the knock out stages after failing on all previous attempts. Pellegrini’s City were able to pick up all three points against the German champions. CSKA Moscow were punished by all these major European powerhouses and they finished fourth behind Roma. The Rome based club also lost on several occasions despite of so many quality players. Alike Liverpool, Roma made a comeback after missing out on a previous few occasions.

Group F’s proceedings were resided upon by Luis Enrique’s Barcelona. The Blaugrana giants won all their group matches expect one. PSG finished second, only two points behinds the Spanish giants. Both these teams have interesting fixtures in the round of 16, this week.

Chelsea and Schalke were the clear winners of Group G. The Blues won four and drew two to gather 14 points in their six group games. The German club, Schalke FC were the second best team in Group G and they finished the group stages with 8 points, only one more than the Portuguese club, Sporting Lisbon.

Group H was topped by the Portuguese club, Porto FC. Porto went undefeated in the group stages and amassed 14 points. Shakhtar Donetsk has also made it to the knock out stages after winning twice and drawing thrice in the group stage.